ABSTRACT
Chapter Two focuses on one of the principal elements of respectability’s map: legitimate self-respect as the key feature of a respectable identity. It begins by relating the “self-respecting self” to scholarly discussions of the “modern subject.” Some of the important features of self-respecting as a cognitive process are examined with the help of Anthony Giddens’ theories of self-identification. Reference is made to concepts of doubling or mirroring, especially to Adam Smith’s idea of the “impartial spectator.” Most of the chapter is devoted to an examination of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, in which self-respect is a principal aspect of the central character’s identity and a major determinant of what happens. The chapter examines many of the dimensions of self-respect by looking at facets of Jane Eyre’s identity that are stressed by Brontë and that frame the manner in which self-respect operates. One of these facets is self-identification as a woman, which suggests implications of respectability for constructing modern gender, for creating legitimate public identities for women, and for complicating the familiar assertion that respectability, by relegating women to the “private sphere,” denied them such identities. Other facets include Jane’s plainness, her status as an orphan, and her self-identification as English, as poor, as a teacher and as a Christian.
